Radiographic imaging such as x-ray imaging has been used for years in medical applications and for non-destructive testing.
Normally, an x-ray imaging system includes an x-ray source and an x-ray detector system. The x-ray source emits x-rays, which pass through a subject or object to be imaged and are then registered by the x-ray detector system. Since some materials absorb a larger fraction of the x-rays than others, an image is formed of the subject or object.
It may be useful to begin with a brief overview of an illustrative overall x-ray imaging system, with reference to FIG. 10. In this non-limiting example, the x-ray imaging system 100 basically comprises an x-ray source 10, an x-ray detector system 20 and an associated image processing device 30. In general, the x-ray detector system 20 is configured for registering radiation from the x-ray source 10 that may have been focused by optional x-ray optics and passed an object or subject or part thereof. The x-ray detector system 20 is connectable to the image processing device 30 via suitable analog processing and read-out electronics (which may be integrated in the x-ray detector system 20) to enable image processing and/or image reconstruction by the image processing device 30.
In any x-ray detector it is important to obtain the maximum dose efficiency for a certain production cost. By way of example, for a next generation of x-ray detectors that are photon counting spectral it has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,183,535 to use edge-on detectors with Silicon as detector material. If the Silicon is made deeper the absorption of x-rays will increase and thus the dose efficiency increase. However since more Silicon is required to make the detector thicker it also mean the detector will be more expensive to manufacture. This is a general problem with other materials as well, and also with other expensive aspects of the detector implementation.
It is therefore desirable to find effective ways of building an x-ray detector.